The Patchwork Girl Of Oz (Film)
The Patchwork Girl Of Oz is a 1914 silent five-reel film, directed by J. Farrell MacDonald and written and produced by L. Frank Baum. The film is loosely based on the book The Patchwork Girl Of Oz, and it makes almost no use of the dialog from the book in the intertitles. While there are a number of modest special effects, the movie relies largely on dancing or rather cavorting, slapstick, costuming, and uses acrobatics regularly with good effect. Plot Ojo, a munchkin boy, who just happens to look like a beautiful shapely girl, and his Unc Nunkie run out of food from their bread-tree, so they decide to journey to the emerald city where they will never starve. Along the way, they meet Mewel, a stray mule who leads them to a magician's house, where they meet Dr. Pipt, who has been stirring the powder of life for nine years. His wife, Margolotte, who is tired of doing all of the chores, decides to make herself a slave girl out out of quilt, whom she names "Scraps". Scraps looks totally ugly and weird, because she has a face that looks like a scalped Leatherface clown from a horror movie, sparse stringy yarn for hair, hulking and broad shoulders, and wears an oilcloth tarp dress does nothing for her figure. Ojo is put in charge of mixing the "brains", adds plenty of brains to Margolotte's patchwork servant, and makes the mistake of giving her too much of everything. This gives her a very spirited personality, before she is brought to life with the powder. When Scraps does come to life, she flips around like a nut in a nimble acrobatic mess and accidentally knocks the liquid of petrifaction upon Unc Nunkie, Margolotte, and Jesseva's boyfriend Danx. Knowing that he couldn't possibly mix another powder of life for another nine years, the magician lists some elaborate ingredients for a quick fix that Ojo and his daughter Jesseva must fetch. So all go on separate journeys to find the ingredients to the antidote, they include three hairs from the woozy's tail, a six-leaf clover, and water from the dark well. Of course, Jesseva has Danx shrunken to take with her, which causes trouble with Jinjur. Of course, no one ever told Ojo that some of the ingredients were illegal to obtain. They first come across the woozy, who looks like a simple boxy cat costume made by a couple of kids, as Scraps tries to convince the woozy to give them three hairs from his tail. They end up up dancing together, and the woozy decides to just come along on their journey. Next, they meet an unintentionally frightening beast, that seems to resemble a strange oriental monkey, it is known as the lonesome zoop. The group also run into lots of strange animals and people, including one legged hoppers, black faced jolly hottentots, weird wizard looking horners, and briefly get to see the scarecrow, tin woodman and cowardly lion. The group notice similarities in Scraps behavior and appearance to the scarecrow and even think "they'd make a cute couple." Cast of characters Violet MacMillan as Ojo Frank Moore as Unc Nunkie Raymond Russell as Dr. Pipt Leontine Dranet as Margolotte Bobbie Gould as Jesseva Marie Wayne as Jinjur Dick Rosson as Danx Frank Bristol as the soldier with the green whiskers Fred Woodward as the woozy, the zoop, and Mewel Todd Wright as the wizard of Oz Bert Glennon as the scarecrow Hal Roach as the cowardly lion and a tottenhot Andy Anderson as the hungry tiger Jessie May Walsh as Ozma William Cook as the royal chamberlain Ben Deeley as Rozyn the village fiddler Lon Musgrave as the tin woodman Pierre Couderc as Scraps the patchwork girl Vivian Reed as Ozma head logo Juanita Hansen as the bell ringer Harold Lloyd as the tottenhot on the jury Trivia The plot omits the glass cat, the shaggy man, the yoop, and the phonograph, but also adds a donkey named "Mewel" and "the lonesome zoop", both slapstick animals. Dr. Pipt's daughter is added for love interest, as well as an additional plot thread: her boyfriend is turned into a small statue which women find irresistible. Baum cast French acrobat Pierre Couderc in the title role because he was unable to find a woman with the level of acrobatic training to do the role, due to social restrictions. Early film stock was fragile, and could rot or fall apart if not properly cared for, which caused damage to creep in on the first reel of the film as a white blob on the right hand side of the screen. It progressively gets worse and worse as the reel keeps going, and the key scene of the patchwork girl coming to life, and Unk Nunkie, Margolotte, and Danx turning to stone when the liquid of petrifaction falls on them is so badly damaged that it has never been seen it intact . Category:The Wizard Of Oz